12 Miles Below

The drake slithered slowly into the clearing, head rocking back and forth, taking slow steps. Greedy, but cautious. I hardly heard him arrive, and I had been on alert the entire time.

He’d clearly taken detours before arriving here, dirt and all kinds of twigs had gotten stuck around the body’s chassis on all the nooks and crannies, evidence of it lurking around. It lumbered slowly past my position, the foliage around me having done the trick.

Fido could have showed up days later once he was absolutely sure that we were drained of energy to fight with. Then again, I’ve seen machines chase me down to the ends of the earth only because I’d had the audacity to escape them. They can be vindictive little monsters and want nothing short of instant gratification.

Hecate’s survival knowledge on constructing traps, right down to the exact measurements needed for optimal rock-impaling goodness, was a godsend. Like having access to a librarian who knew where all the good books were at. The engineer in me approved with two thumbs up.

Once it caught sight of my decoy, white flag limp in the armor’s hands, as if the owner were sleeping, the monster froze. Still a few steps away from the traps.

Its mouth slowly opened and charged the laser.

Look at him go. Didn’t bother to gloat or talk. Just wanted me dead. I could respect that sort of focused mind. Regretable that he didn’t come closer to the traps, but I could make do.

In the past, Father had waited until the monster had fired before he took action. Hindsight made it clear why - they couldn’t rapid fire that sort of beam. Each attack incurred a cooldown period. So the best time to fight a drake was when it couldn’t threaten anyone with that beam. Once Fido made his move, I’d make mine. Hecate should join in right after, given the noise that his beam would make.

If I angle myself right, the drake wouldn’t have any other choice but to rush over the traps in order to get to me. Without range, Fido only had those claws to work with.

Except the machine didn’t follow the script. He had his own plan in mind. At the last moment, his head swung up, aiming straight into the canopy - right where Hecate would be sleeping.

My blood froze as the beam speared through the tree, drilling a hole right through everything - trunk, branch, and leaves. The forest exploded into noise as flocks of birds flew off in a frenzy, away from where the beam of light had come from.

A dark chuckle came from the beast. No sounds cme from the singed branches above.

In a single moment, he’d taken out Hecate. And now I was deep in the shit.

The drake twisted its head to look in my direction. “Sssss…. Did you think to trick… a hunter? Did you think… this was enough?”

I could feel the panic well inside and I crushed it ruthlessly with everything I had. Hecate would be fine. She’s Deathless. She’d return to life. I needed to focus and follow the script. Out here without armor, I felt weak and slow. But that's the life most surface scavangers. If they could do it, so could I.

Atius's occult blade lit up, and I launched myself out of the shrub to the side. The plan was a bust, but the best I could do was follow through. Fido clawed the air, and I dodged backwards, taking careful steps to weave in between the traps, putting the danger zone between Fido and myself.

He didn’t move. No, instead he waited, grinning at me. “Sssss… Simple construction of dirt and wood, crafted in desperation. I can smell it from here, little child. It will not trick me. You have nothing. No one. No hope. Run… hide… or wait for but a moment longer. I will set you free, regardlessssss.”

“Didn’t quite catch that. Got a bad ear. How about you come a little closer and try again?” I said, gripping my sword and considering my options. Trying to throw my sword would be suicide in all but name, especially without armor to power my throw. If I tried to fight him, there’s a chance I could fall into my trap in the scuffle. And the drake was clearly happy to sit and wag his tail on the other side, waiting for his primary weapon to charge again. Not to mention there was no chance to run from him. He could catch up even while I wore Journey.

The standstill remained for a few seconds until the drake snapped its head to the right and gave a surprised roar.

Wings stretched out wide, Hecate leaped out from the forest, moving like a blur across the ground. Two swords were ignited.

She danced under his throat, two blurs of occult blue lighting the path she took, striking the monster’s throat. A heartbeat later, she was well out of reach again, on the other side, gracefully turning around with a gust of wind from her wings. Swords raised up in challenge.

“Surrender.” She simply said. “Your primary weapon has now been disabled. Your mission’s success rates have gone beyond acceptable conditions.”

The drake hissed. “This changes nothing, little Deathless… Time… fades away for you both.”

And then Fido displayed a level of courage I hadn’t expected from a machine of his size. The giant, looming monster turned and bolted away without another word.

In all fairness, that was the smarter move to pick, which was damn annoying for us all.

Hecate launched herself after it. Fido expected this, swinging his massive tail into a thinner tree, knocking it down in the path. That’d have worked pretty well if I had been chasing after him.

But it did absolutely nothing to stop a Deathless chasing after him, esspecially one with wings. She leaped straight in between tree branches as the whole thing fell down in a display of acrobatics even Kidra couldn’t compete with.

I sprinted after, clearing the trap zone and climbing my way through the broken trees to see what was happening.

On the other side, Hecate had her wings stretched out wide, shimmering with power as she crouched on the ground, about to leap forward.

Instead, she stopped, standing back up slowly, the floating metal slivers collapsing back to hug her waist. I caught up to her in a moment. “You’re letting Fido get away?” I asked, watching the drake move in the distance, already bounding over a smaller mountain path and vanishing from sight. “If we don’t deal with him right now, we won’t get a second chance!”

“I could chase after him, and there is a high possibility that I would catch up and defeat the drake before my power ran out.” She looked around before slowly ending her gaze on me, and I understood what she was implying.

“But you don’t know what would happen to me if you left.” I said.

Hecate nodded. “You are outside of armor now. And there’s been a significant amount of time since the drake’s last contact with us. It might have reached out and found new lessers to join rank. Pulling me away from you is a possible plan the drake could have intended on if it failed to kill me.”

After which, whatever help it had recruited would have shown up to finish the job.

We both stood in silence, watching the trail where the drake had fled off to. Now we were deep into it.

“I am sorry, Keith.” She said. “I should not have attempted to avoid killing the drake. This was the only chance we had to destroy it, and I squandered it. I—”

“It’s fine.” I said, patting her shoulder. “I know you were torn up about how to deal with Fido. We’ll get him in another way.”

Hecate turned to me, “We have a plan E?” She asked.

I flashed her a grin. “Not at all. But I’m sure we’ll figure something else.”

We did not, in fact, figure something else.

Which meant I needed to dig down and use the occult as the official plan E. No other way about it. There were fractals within Journey’s armor that I could leverage into armaments of sorts. I knew where all the plates containing the important fractals were inside Journey’s armor. I could extract them all, in theory. I’d need to wire up an electric switch, or keep them all online permanently, but that wasn’t impossible either.

If I got out of this alive, I needed to figure out how to fight without an armor for the future. Maybe I could make an occult staff, with all the fractals written out on plates the staff carried, and electric switches to manually turn them on or off. At least with that I could use the more simple spells.

An occult weapons platform would also work, something that could cycle through different plates to use with a lever. A necklace for the soul fractal would work well. A few rings with fractals written out on them and toggles embedded, or some kind of plate on the back of my hand.

It’s only now that I’m stuck out here with only twigs to work with that I’m thinking up of all the ways I could be the biggest pain to my next enemy.

The issue was Hecate. I’m reasonably sure I could share with her I knew about the Occult, given that she’s a Deathless, and saved my life. The only ones I’m supposed to be careful about were warlocks and their guild.

The question was if I should drag her with me, given her own time limit. It didn’t take long for me to figure out the answer to that.

“We should split up.” I said after having mulled it over, around the dying embers of our campfire. It was bittersweet, but I've already taken much more than I should have any right to ask for. “You need a new power source and you don’t have time to waste on this little grudge match. The drake doesn’t care about you. It’s after me. You don’t need to get involved. While the drake and I get to know each other, you can use that time to get closer to the next power source.”

She stayed silent for a moment, before matching my gazed with a frown. “There’s a high chance you will perish before I can return. That isn’t acceptable.”

“I’m pretty good at running. Who knows, I might be able to escape the Drake. I’ve got a few extra tricks to throw at it. I’m full of surprises.”

“You won’t escape a drake.” Hecate said sternly. “They are hunters, specifically created to track down humans. It will know where to look for you. There are patterns most humans will follow. Even if you break those patterns, it will only gain a few additional hours as the drake reorients itself. This plan will lead to your death.”

“If you tag along with me, there’s a chance you die. Heading our own ways here is the best chance you’ve got to getting out of this without dying. And I do have my own set of teeth, more than just this old sword.” I said. “Look, we’re both in a tight spot here, but at least you can make it out.”

She stared at me as if I were an idiot. “I am Deathless. Dying means very little to me. However, if you die, you will not return. Additionally, I have debts to pay. Someone who’s grown to be important to me would be hurt if I left you to die.”

“What, me personally? A day ago you didn’t know who I was.” I said, curiosity growing.

She gazed out in the distance for a moment, contemplating an answer. “I’ve made a choice to help save your life. Part of it was my initiative, another part was by my… mentor, of kinds. A pact was made. I owe it to him to stay true to my word.”

I hummed, “Ah, that’s what you mean.” Likely some kind of Undersider vow to help those who need help, like the ones we had on the surface. And Hecate was willing to fight to the death to uphold her ideals. Being Deathless, she literally could do that.

Then again, she was injured in a way that Deathless typically are not. When Lord Atius was killed by To’Aacar the first time, he’d returned to life without his armor or any of his equipment. If that happened to her, would she find herself stranded and paralyzed out there?

“Have you died before, as a Deathless?” I asked, leaning back on the tree, trying to figure out how to probe for answers. “What’s the process like?”

She didn’t turn to look at me, instead her gaze drifted up the canopy. “I have died, once. When I returned there were others to help guide me. Friends.”

“Ah, yes. Those. I’m afraid we’re fresh out of stock here. What are you doing out in the middle of nowhere anyhow, leaving everyone behind like that, given your paralysis? I’m sure others would have come with you to help you find the mite-speakers.”

Hecate shook her head. “It was To’Aacar. I knew he was after… someone. And only I could move fast enough to keep up with his ability to portal. No one else could keep up.”

Did she see the battle between To’Aacar and Lord Atius? She must have seen what happened when I’d been tossed off the cliff if she could fly. “So you picked to save me, over diving into the fight with To’Aacar and getting him there?”

Hecate nodded. “I calculated that given the forces that he had to fight, the likely result is his retreat. Weakened as he was, his abilities allow him great freedom in escaping dangerous situations. Joining the fight would not have made a significant difference to the overall result.” She paused, sighed, and shook her head. “No. I am not being completely honest. I was… hesitant to confront him directly. Doing so would be a path of no return.”

“So you went and helped me out, since if he’s trying to kill me, that’s a good enough reason to save me, since it’ll piss him off indirectly.” I said. “So long as you don’t get spotted as the one helping me out?”

Hecate smiled at that. “Yes. Something like this. I’ve discovered that spite remains a strong motivator. Although it seems to have turned directions.”

A brief silence fell around us. I couldn’t completely understand what she was talking about, but Hecate was already strange in many ways, and I didn’t want to tread too deeply into her past.

We hadn’t figured out any way out of this together. The drake would not show its scaly face around for another day or two, probably making absolutely sure we had nothing to fight it with anymore.

“Maybe we could try to wait it out anyhow?” I asked. “I can hunt and gather food for us outside of armor, and you keep everything in the lowest power setting possible. You can probably last a long time with just a trickle of energy. The drake will come back after enough time to try its luck again, and this time, we’ll need to kill it off in one hit.”

Hecate was about to answer when her head twisted to her side while she jumped up into action, swords flashing out.

When I looked for myself to see what had startled Hecate, I could barely see something in the darkness. The blur of motion. It wobbled into the firelight.

An empty hoversled. Bouncing lightly in the air and moving directly our way at a steady pace, as if someone had outright kicked it this way. “Are you seeing that?” I asked. “Or was what we ate earlier not perfectly healthy?”

The sled lazily glided over, eventually stopped by her hand, making me at least happy this was a mutual hallucination. Her eyes roamed around the forest, searching for the source. “Whoever is out there, reveal yourselves.” She commanded.

No answer came from the forest. So we had to find answers from the empty sled itself.

It looked odd. There were decorations around it, sigils and colors painted on the side. A lot of scratch marks all over, some having been painted over, others more fresh. Dust marks at the bottom showed where older boxes clearly had been stacked before there, cleared off recently. I couldn’t tell exactly how old this was, but I could tell it’s seen a heavy amount of use, likely daily. The built-in storage compartment had been cut out, and given the precision, that had to be an occult blade doing the work. Inside the interior was one power cell, rolling around with the green-gold solution glowing softly inside. Rolling softly at the bottom of the sled were two large wooden rods, each with handles on one end, cut with precise angles tell-tale of that occult blade again.

At the keel of the sled was something more interesting. A scratched out sentence in large font with a surprising amount of flourish.

Follow the trail

Next chapter - Joy ride

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